Fire lookout · Sanders/ Shoshone (ID) County, Montana
Divide Peak (Seventy-Two)
Also known as Divide Peak Lookout, Divide Peak (72 Peak)
Pole L-4 lookout completed in 1931 on 72 Peak at the Montana-Idaho line; gone by 1950, with sources giving abandoned, destroyed or removed.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Sources date its end to 1950 but differ on how (abandoned, destroyed or removed); no source describes remains
Visit & stay
Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.
Access
Access unknown
We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower30-foot pole L-4 tower with a porch around the cabThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1931
- Height
- 30 ft (9.1 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Kootenai National Forest
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Sanders/ Shoshone (ID) County, Montana
- Coordinates
- 47.96641, −116.02442 sources disagree
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-mt-divide-peak-seventy-two
View from the cab
What the lookout saw from its cab: every ridge out to about 93 miles, the named peaks in sight, and other fire lookouts within view, worked out from terrain data in your browser.
This lookout is gone. The view is reconstructed from its recorded site and its recorded height.
Downloads about 4.0 MB of terrain data the first time.
Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.
History
Then and now
- 1931 BuiltCompleted 1931 on 72 Peak at the Montana-Idaho state line; reached by auto over the Jacks Gulch road south of HeronSources: montanalookouts.weebly.com, idahofirelookouts.com
- No record between 1931 and 1950
- 1950 AbandonedFirelookout.com says abandoned 1950Source: firelookout.com
- 1950 DestroyedIdaho Fire Lookouts says destroyed 1950Source: idahofirelookouts.com
- Date unknown RemovedMontana listing marks it 'Removed'; no date givenSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
- TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.
Old maps of this spot
USGS topographic maps from the years a lookout stood may show it, often as a small symbol labelled “Lookout”. See the old topo maps around it on the Firefinder map, or find every scanned sheet of this spot on USGS TopoView (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The lookout on 72 Peak, also called Divide Peak, was completed in 1931 on the Montana-Idaho state line.1,2 Sources describe it as a 30-foot pole tower of the L-4 type.3,2 A Sanders County newspaper described a tower with a porch all the way around the cab, heavily insulated against lightning, and said it could be reached by car over the Jacks Gulch road, south of Heron.1
Montana listings place it in the Kootenai National Forest, while Idaho Fire Lookouts gives the Coeur d'Alene National Forest.3,2,1
Two sources date its end to 1950 but describe it differently. Firelookout.com says it was abandoned that year, and Idaho Fire Lookouts says it was destroyed.3,2 A Montana listing marks it 'Removed' without a date.1
The Forest Fire Lookout Association's index lists the tower as gone.4 Idaho Fire Lookouts says a first visit went to the wrong spot, and a return trip found the correct site.2 No source describes what, if anything, remains there now, or whether the site is open to visitors.
- Divide Peak (72 Peak), Forest Lookouts, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/divide-peak-72-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Divide Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/divide-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Divide Peak (Seventy-Two) Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/dividepeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Montana lookout list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Photos
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Where sources disagree
We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.
Sources disagree on the location by 830 m.
- FFLA: 47.96641, −116.02442
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page: 47.97274, −116.03039
The map uses the position from FFLA.
Sources
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, type, status, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) Gave us: links firelookout.com · No licence stated on the site; facts only (coordinates, elevation, built/destroyed years, design, agency). Photos mirrored with the site's stated credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) (opens another site) Gave us: photos, links idahofirelookouts.com · No licence stated; facts only (coordinates, status/built/destroyed year parsed from each entry's short excerpt). Thumbnail photos mirrored with credit per the project's photo policy. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) Gave us: height, agency, ownership, links Ron Kemnow's Forest Lookouts sites (westlookouts, californialookouts, idaholookouts, montanalookouts, oregonlookouts and washingtonlookouts .weebly.com) · No licence stated; facts only (county, land manager, status word, coordinates where the page's own map widget gives them, township-range-section, height and design hints, links). The site's own newspaper quotes, citations and narrative are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, dates, links, fact-check Firefinder research (sources cited in the story footnotes) · Our own research notes; each fact cites its source in the lookout's story
More about this lookout elsewhere
- FFLA Montana lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Divide Peak (Seventy-Two) on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Divide Peak Lookout on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
- Divide Peak (72 Peak) on Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow) (opens another site)
- firelookout.com page (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.